This invention relates to highway and roadway reflectors and, more particularly, to reflectors mounted on corrugated metal barriers, roadway dividers and the like.
Roadway reflectors show motor vehicle drivers outlines of the highways or lanes in which they are driving during nighttime hours. They may be mounted in the concrete or macadam road surfaces between lanes or on the periphery thereof. They may also be mounted on metal posts on the side of the highways, on overhead signs, or on roadway barriers.
Metal or concrete roadway barriers or guardrails are vertically oriented and typically mounted immediately outwardly adjacent the highway shoulder to prevent vehicles from unintentionally leaving the highway or crossing medians in divided highways. As these barriers run generally parallel to the highway lanes, reflectors positioned on those barriers need to be positioned at right angles to the barriers to be seen by oncoming traffic.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,214,142 discloses reflector elements that may be mounted in the corrugations of metal highway barriers.
Larger reflectors that are set at 90 degree angles to concrete lane dividers are shown at U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,249,832 and 5,678,950. A more modern guard rail reflector that sits at 90 degrees to the guard rail to which it is mounted is shown at U.S. Pat. No. 5,950,992. This patent discloses two embodiments, one that sits on the top of I-beam guard rail supports and a second that fits in the corrugation of the metal guardrail.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,000,882, discloses a foam type reflector that is mounted in the corrugations of a steel roadway or Armco barrier. However, except for the small end of the panel, the reflective panel on these foam rubber inserts faces the roadway rather than oncoming drivers.
These reflective panels in most cases face an oncoming motor vehicle. In the case of reflectors positioned within the corrugation of steel roadway barriers, the existing reflective members are exposed to damage or breakage by the pressure of snow being forced against the barriers by snowplows during winter. Some of the patents disclose in writing supposedly resilient or elastic members, but do not show how that feature would act in the drawing. Even though a snowplow itself may not contact the roadway barrier or the reflector mounted in a corrugation or on top of the barrier (or on the side of a concrete barrier), the pressure of snow being forced to the side of the roadway by snowplows is enough to severely bend a metal based reflector or break a plastic based reflector of current construction. Resilience in the impact, as a vehicle rubs against a barrier, is also desirable.
A need has developed for a roadway reflector that is mountable on the top or side of a road barrier that will withstand the pressures and forces of snow being packed against it by a passing motor vehicle equipped with a snow plow.
It is therefore an object of the invention, generally stated, to provide a new and improved reflector for use in connection with highway road barriers.
Another object of the present invention is the provision of a highway road barrier mountable reflector that has the ability to resiliently withstand the forces of snow packed thereon by highway vehicles with snowplows attached thereto.